


The Son of a Witch

by Wanu



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Daemons, Deadlock Jesse McCree, English isn't my native language, Gen, Jesse's Mama was a witch, M/M, McHanzo only hinted at the end, No one knows for sure, Or was she?, Post-Recall, Pre-Recall, What do kids call their parents' daemons?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-25 22:29:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14388429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanu/pseuds/Wanu
Summary: “My mama was a witch” Jesse said as if it could explain everything. Even after all these years he didn’t know if his words were a lie or not, but they had learned a long time ago it was easier for people to accept them if they believed that the skill was in their blood.The story how Jesse McCree and his daemon learned the skill that only witches were supposed to have and the confusion they spread with it.





	1. Chapter 1

His mama had had the best Deamon, Jesse knew. A Peregrine Falcon whose name had been so fancy and complicated that most people usually ended up calling him Jay, something the bird of prey had always found amusing. 

Jesse and Rosita though, to them he had always been just Mother.

From the four adults they had grown up with, Mother had been the best story teller -but a terrible singer which was a bit ironic since Mama had been known as a bit of talent on that field- capturing Jesse and Rosita’s attention for hours when he started to paint the tales and legends of the past with his words, making him the number one babysitter Jesse’s parents liked to use.

But the best thing in Jay hadn’t been his silver tongue nor his great personality. No, it had been the way how he had flown. Higher than any other daemon, going so far away that you couldn’t see him anymore. To the young boy and his daemon it had been something breath taking and magical. The embodiment of the true freedom, if there ever was one.

Mother had loved flying more than anything. His legs hardly ever touched the ground and sometimes the daemon could be gone for months at once, bringing small trinkets and plants with him from far-away places as presents for his human and the small family she had built.

Of course, no present was enough to take away the pain of missing someone bellowed when they were gone. Rosita especially was always much more silent when the mother daemon was gone, often mimicking the birds of prey and practising her flying hours at time, pushing the limits of their comfort when trying to reach the same heights they had seen Jay to touch. 

She kept telling Jesse that one day she would join Mother on her trips and bring Jesse the greatest treasures as gifts. Jesse, being still too naïve to understand what Mama and Mother’s weird bond truly meant, claimed he couldn’t wait that day to come.

Their parents hated it when Rosita tried to stretch their bond or refused to keep any other form than those who could fly. Especially Jesse’s papa and Father, a dingo daemon named Marigold, tried to urge them to stick in more ground loving animal forms, claiming that only girls like his mama could be truly happy with a daemon who was meant to fly. 

It wasn’t until Jesse and Rosita were much older they understood what they had meant, but by then, it had already been too late.

But no matter how much the children had begged their mother to stay with them, the daemon could never stay long before disappearing again. Their mama had a soul of a wanderer after all, and Mother’s trips had probably been the only reason why she had stand to settle down with their family for so long time. 

The flying had been in their blood. It had been what defined who they were and now when Jesse was older, he understood how it had only been matter of months or even days before Mama would have lost the battle against her wanderer’s soul and walked out of the door after her daemon, leaving her family and child behind without second look.

But Jay had never given up flying. He had loved it too much, even more than the human who he belonged to.

Part of Jesse was thankful Jay had been in air when his body turned in Dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit short, I know, but the next chapters will be longer.
> 
> My HC is that if daemons were a thing, there would be a separated words to call your parents daemons. But since I didn’t want to make up some new words, people in this universe call their parents’ daemon with same “tittle” as their human parent. I.e. the child (and their daemon) will always call their mother’s daemon mother as well, even though the daemon is opposite sex.


	2. Chapter 2

They had been 15 when Rosita settled. Like in most stories they had heard, the moment hadn’t been that special. In the morning, Rosita had changed into an animal looking intimidating enough to make the sellers think twice before trying to shoot them and at the end of the day, when she tried to turn back to puma to keep Jesse warm through the night, nothing had happened.

Most members of their gang had been impressed when Jesse announced the settling the following day, congratulating them from the good settling and jokingly telling how they had been sure Rosita would end up being a grasshopper or rat or other claims that Jesse brushed aside with loud laugh. But some older members didn’t seem as exited, glancing towards the boy and his daemon with looks that were almost pitying, never seeing the sharp talons and the deadly beak the others in the gang were so excited about. 

The only thing they saw were the wings and the fate Jesse and Rosita had doomed to live.

After all… What was the point of being able to flying if your human couldn’t leave the ground with you? It was almost as big of curse as getting yourself stuck with a daemon who couldn’t leave the ocean behind.

It took Jesse and Rosita months to see the curse they had created for themselves. Like Jay before her, Rosita longed to use her wings, fly high above the mountains and kiss the sun, but because of her connection with Jesse, the best she could do was to fly next to the boy’s motorbike, making the burning easier to bear, but was never enough.

During those times, Jay’s tales about the sacred lands of north where daemons couldn’t enter, returned in their minds. Witches had once used them, but after the Crisis these women were so far and few that Jesse could spend lifetimes without finding one of them to ask help for their problem. And even then, there was nothing ensuring the witches would give the location to outsiders lie them even if Jesse and Rosita managed to find them.

“We could just… walk away” Rosita suggested one night. Her golden eyes stared the moon behind the glassless window of the shack they were spending the night after yet another day long ride through the desert. “Mother always told us it wasn’t the place that caused the witches to get separated from their daemons. It’s the distance.”

Jesse lifted the trim of his hat, staring at his best friend who wouldn’t meet his eyes. 

“It will hurt like a hell” he reminded her “They say you die if human and daemon get separated.”

“Mama and Mother made it” the daemon insisted, her voice quiet and weak, as if she was trying to assure herself instead of her human.

“Mama was a witch” Jesse said but wasn’t really arguing. Just stating the facts.

“We don’t know that for sure” Rosita’s words were almost a whisper. And she was right; they didn’t. Mama had never used magic and as far as they remembered, there hadn’t been any mean rumours moving around the neighbourhood either. The only witch like thing in her had been a daemon who could travel too far and a family she was going to abandon.

“You really want to fly, don’t ya” 

The daemon just shrugged. 

“Just,” Jesse swallowed painfully. “Just promise you won’t leave me” Like Mother had left Mama.

Rosita flew down from the window still and buried herself between the teen’s shoulder and neck, snuggling her soft feather covered head against her human’s cheek.

“Never. Papa might have been right when he said you have your mama’s soul, but I’m not like Mother”

There really was nothing Jesse could say after that. Not when the silence between them carried the message better than any words he could imagine.

The next day, hours after the sun had passed its beak, the boy and his daemon returned to the camp with pale faces and red trimmed eyes, hugging each other tighter than any man in normal state of mind ever would. No one in the Deadlock said anything about it, brushing it aside as yet another near dead experiences the outlaws like them had either get used to or start digging their own graves. 

Few days later, Jesse scared the half of the gang out of their skins when Rosita flew away to retrieve his forgotten hat from the other side of the camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who are interested. Rosita is Red-tailed hawk.


	3. Chapter 3

If anything, Overwatch was mighty interested in Jesse’s daemon. Or more accurately, mighty interested in finding out why she was “hiding”.

In Deadlock, it had been a common practice among people with smaller daemons to keep them hidden under their hats or vests, trying to create an illusion of “soulless killer” since ants and sparrows weren’t really that useful when trying to scare the cash cows beg their mama’s name. And since there was always a change that that little daemon had settled in as a scorpion or venomous snake, peoples with enough sense kept their curious mouths shut if someone’s daemon was nowhere to be seen.

But in Overwatch… Oh boy…

As soon as Jesse had signed those stupid papers, saving him from spending the rest of his life counting the bricks, Commander Reyes had popped the question, his daemon’s sharp teeth making Jesse more nervous than the steel like eyes of his new boss.

Jesse had still managed to collect enough courage to tell the man to fuck off and that Rosita would show herself whenever she felt like it and not even moment earlier. 

He had been so lucky that Reyes and Palmira had found his attitude amusing.

The doctor who had been ordered to make his physiological evaluation hadn’t been as easy to deal with. Not only her fowl daemon had been the most annoying person Jesse had ever met, but the shrink herself clearly had no idea what word ‘no’ meant. The woman just kept going how important it was for the complete evaluation to know as what animal Rosita had settled and see how two of them interacted.

Jesse had politely made it clear his and Rosita’s relationship was their own damn business and had nothing to do with the job Reyes had hired him to do.

The woman had diagnosed him having a low self-esteem and serious trust issues.

Well, at least one of those had been correct one.

The third one who had had bigger problems with Jesse’s lack of visible daemon had been another doctor. The kind of doctor you went to see when you were sick, not to say Jesse had ever needed one before, instead of those who made you talk about your feelings.

Jesse had to say that this doctor had been a way easier to deal with than his shrink colleague, probably thanks to his daemon who had settled into a form of small sheep, but he had still roasted Jesse longer than necessary with the facts about how his health was reflected on his daemon, and therefore was important piece of information when creating the patient’s medical profile.

Well, at least the doctor’s intern had been a good company.

The last time anyone made a big number about his daemon had been in the equipment storage, where the workers almost didn’t let him leave the room if he didn’t show them where his daemon was. Part of Jesse understood why they had made so big deal out of it, it was their job to give his daemon maximum protection and all that, but it was still extremely annoying when people didn’t know when the right time to back off was.

After a couple weeks, the people get used to the fact that no one knew what the Blackwatch’s newest (and youngest) trainee’s daemon was. Most of them ended up making the same assumption as people had done in the Deadlock, believing Jesse was just too embarrassed of the small size of his daemon, which was perfectly fine to the young man. He wasn’t even that bothered how some of his co-workers (the word sounded so weird in Jesse’s head) had gotten in their heads that Jesse was a late bloomer and his daemon had yet to settle in her final form.

Being part of this hero gig wasn’t feeling that bad either. Sure, Jesse hadn’t yet been part of any real missions, just run through some simulations in solo, with other trainees and once even with the more experienced agents but getting five meals a day and eight hours of sleep in real bed, every single night, was something Jesse had last experienced sometimes before the Crisis. 

Jesse had also managed to make himself a friend from the medical intern he had meet on his first week on duty. Angela, despite being a bit too serious compared to the people Jesse and Rosita usually spend time with, turned out to be a good-hearted person who in her own way reminded Jesse of his late mother. He would have even bet his hat and claim the young woman to be a witch if her daemon, Michael (a cursed creature who was always trying to steal Jesse’s smokes), hadn’t been a deer. 

Through Angela, Jesse had also somehow ended up babysitting Captain Amari’s pre-teen daughter Fareeha and her bubbly daemon Kareem. The kids were cute, though two of them had a weird obsession on figuring out what animal Rosita was and of course Jesse had used it for his benefit. Angela and Alim had voiced their disapproval, but really, it wasn’t exactly Jesse’s fault if the girl and her daemon wanted to spend all their candies as payment for wrong guesses. She was free to stop asking anytime she wanted.

Still, no matter how much Jesse liked his new life with Overwatch, it still didn’t feel like home. Not without Rosita’s shadow flying above his head, feeling her weight on his shoulder, arguments about pointless little things that would always end up one of them giving the other one silent treatment for at least next half an hour before they made up.

On the end of Jesse’s third month in the Overwatch’s Swiss HQ, his wait ended.

The day had started pretty badly, Reyes had dragged the whole Blackwatch division on the morning jog on the near mountains. The whole idea of the running on the mountains had itself caused half of their group to curse their terrible fates, but when it turned out Commander Reyes, a literal super soldier, would be the one ordering the speed, even the toughest agents knew the day would end up in tears.

They had already nearing the halfway point when the familiar call of a hawk echoed over the Blackwatch operatives’ heads, the only warning Jesse got before sharp talons stole the cap that Reyes had forced Jesse to wear instead of his trademark hat from his head.

Laughing out a loud, Jesse speeded up, his earlier tiredness completely forgotten and breaking the boring formation of daemons and humans on which they had been running. Soon he was rushed past the confused agents all the way up to the head of the line where he could hear Reyes and Palmira bark orders after him, making the two teens laugh even louder.

Rosita kept going for a good while, guiding Jesse further away from the adults before she finally dived down, crashing with wide wings against Jesse’s chest, giving him the closest version of the tackle hug a raptor like her ever could.

“You found me!”

“Of course I did! Why on Earth you’re wearin’ an Overwatch uniform?”

“It was either join or rot in jail. Chose the better deal out of two.”

“So, what? We’re heroes now?”

“Somethin’ like that”

“Mccree!”

The angry yell made the teens wince and Jesse turned to face his commander who was marching towards them, everything about him promising hours forth of extra laps if the boy wouldn’t give him a good reason for his little escape. 

“Explain” 

Jesse’s grin grew even wider as he helped his daemon on his shoulder, the struggle of holding the laughter back making both of them shake when the teens noticed the way the canine daemon’s eyes kept jumping from him to her.

“Boss, meet Rosita. Rosita, meet Commander Gabriel and Palmira Reyes”

“Pleasure,” Rosita snickered before turning to talk to the older daemon. “Oh, and please. Next time you decide to move my Jesse on another continent, make sure not to leave me behind.”

Jesse had to admit it, the horrified looks on the two soldiers’ faces almost made the months long separation worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reyes: Palmira = wolf or Doberman. I really can't decide  
> Angela: Michael = fallow deer  
> Ana: Alim = leopard  
> Fareeha: Kareem = not settled 
> 
> Doctor 1 (shrink): ? = black grouse  
> Doctor 2 (Mercy’s boss): ? = Ouessant sheep


	4. Chapter 4

Jesse took a deep breath from his cigar, releasing the smoke as small rings that the salty ocean wind broke almost immediately. The sunset on the Gibraltar base had always been one of his favourites, though it would never beat the ones above the New Mexican desert. Maybe it was the endless nothingness connecting these two otherwise completely opposite environments that kept drawing him to sit at the edge of the cliff almost every evening if only the weather allowed it.

It was also the time of the day he and Rosita met, when the human and daemon shared the tales of their day and exchanged the information they had managed to gather. Neither of them enjoyed spending the whole day, sometimes even longer, apart from each other but the newly formed Overwatch needed every advance it could possibly get. And what was a better than a literal pair of eyes on the sky, spying, searching and digging up information that would have otherwise stayed hidden in the shadows.

It had been Winston’s idea, who’s else, but neither Jesse nor Rosita felt any kind of grudge towards the ape scientist. Him being an animal from birth made Winston unable to understand the importance of daemons in the same way as the humans did, but it also gave him much… more open perspective when it came to think uses for special cases like them. 

Rosita’s absence still made some of the new faces nervous around the bounty hunter. Jesse was a big man with big personality, not exactly someone who you would expect to have an easily hideable daemon. Jesse knew that at least Hana believed his daemon was a rattlesnake or something like that, making the young mech pilot naturally suspicious towards his honesty. After all, it was well-known fact that those with snake daemons spilled lies just as naturally as the poison came from their daemon’s mouth. 

Those who had worked with Jesse on the past and were aware of his and Rosita’s special connection were even worse. They were always avoiding the topics related to the daemons around him and yet they were always asking if Jesse was feeling okay, worrying over his mental health and giving him looks that made Jesse think they were expecting him to drop dead on ground on any given moment, as if Rosita couldn’t keep herself safe while being out on her own. He knew they meant well, but it was still frustrating and made him feel like the advanced connection that had given two of them so much freedom in past had been turned into a deadly disease.

The sound of soft foot step pulled Jesse back from his depressive thoughts and he turned to look at the nearing archer. 

“Howdy,” Jesse greeted him, returning to gaze the sea below them. “Nice evening”

“Indeed, it is” Hanzo admitted, lowering himself to sit next to Jesse without asking a permission, Kaito moving down from his shoulders only to curl on his laps, wordlessly telling they didn’t plan to go anywhere anytime soon.

Jesse raised his brow as silent question, but the archer was more interested in staring the waves than making conservation, so the cowboy returned to enjoy his cigar in silence and waiting the familiar tug of the bond between him and his daemon to return.

Kaito muttered something in Japanese, his voice reminding Jesse of the nearing thunder, a complete opposite compared to the wind chime like sounds his green scaled sister made. Hanzo didn’t seem to like of what the daemon had said, his hand resting on the dragon’s blue back tightening just slightly as a warning.

“Do you truly believe Overwatch has helped you to atone your past sins?” Hanzo suddenly asked, making the cowboy to stop inhaling the smoke and hold his breath for a moment before exhaling it all out as shapeless cloud.

From the moment two of them had arrived to the Watchpoint, Genji had encouraged his brother to spent time with Jesse, believing their equally bloody pasts would help the older Shimada to find a way to forgive himself. Neither cowboy nor assassin hadn’t been that big fan of the idea at first. Jesse’s personality had just rub Hanzo the wrong way and McCree himself had had a little hard time to see past the arrogant and cold mask Shimada kept wearing, but as time passed they had found a common ground, at first through respect towards each other’s skill as marksmen and later through the shared tales around the bottle on cool nights like this.

“I like to believe it has helped me to safe more lives than I have taken,” Jesse finally said “Just barely, though. Blackwatch being what it was”

Hanzo and Kaito hummed in union, but it was hard to say if his answer had satisfied them or not.

“This time it’ll be better though,” Jesse continued, more to assure himself than the man sitting next to him. To tell the truth, there wasn’t a day when Jesse hadn’t expected Winston to come and to talk to him, asking him to do some Blackwatch level, off radar missions for greater good. Because that was what Reyes had always said them to been, a bloodbath in the name of greater good.

The two men sit there once again in silence, wanting to continue their conservation but unsure what to say next.

“Well, isn’t this awkward” familiar snicker came from behind them and soon Jesse felt Rosita’s familiar weight to land on his shoulder. On the corner of his eye Jesse noticed how Hanzo’s hand flew on his belt where Jesse knew him to carry a hidden knife while Kaito jumped on his feet, ready to defence his human with those sharp teeth of his.

“Love you too, pumpkin” Jesse answered dryly, still lifting his flesh hand to pet the daemon who leaned her body against the touch, humming happily to once again be near her human.

“Who are you?” Kaito’s sharp voice interrupted their tender meeting and the two outlaws turned to stare at the dragon with blank faces. Hanzo was eyeing the hawk daemon just as suspiciously as the dragon standing on his shoulder, his hand still resting near the belt, but thankfully the blade was nowhere to be seen.

“Rude,” Rosita huffed and ruffled her feathers drawing a low grow out of the other daemon, but Jesse could see that impish glimmer in her eyes. The one she got every time she attempting to…

Hell no

“Rosita” Jesse warned the daemon who just blinked her eyes and stated to preen her feathers innocently.

“Your daemon,” Hanzo finally realised, recognizing her name from conservations with older members, and Kaito lowered his defensive stand, slowly backing closer to the archer’s neck so he could tie his long tail around his neck, a subconscious act guided by uncomfortable feeling Jesse and Rosita knew them to cause around people who witnessed their unnatural ability.

“Yep,” Jesse confirmed with found smile, not even trying to hide his pride of having a noble, yet deadly, daemon like her. And yet, his words only seemed to make Hanzo and Kaito even more uncomfortable.

“But how can you…?”

“My mama was a witch” Jesse said as if it could explain everything. Even after all these years he didn’t know if his words were a lie or not, but they had learned a long time ago that it was easier for people to accept them if they believed he was born with the skill instead of earning it through his own actions. And Hanzo wasn’t an exception.

“I see” the archer nodded his head, much more relaxed than a moment ago, trying to get better look at the bird daemon partly hidden behind Jesse’s head without being rude. His daemon on the other hand, who was no bound in such subtleties, jumped off from his human’s shoulder and scampered around the cowboy, stopping to sit down at his other side where he stared at the hawk daemon with sharp eyes as she continued to clean her feathers.

Jesse tried his best to ignore the fact how she was clearly moving her wings in the way that the dying sunlight would hit on her feathers the best way possible.

“Does she… prefer to be outside?” Hanzo asked, awkwardly but clearly wanting to understand why this was the first time he was meeting Rosita.

“Well yeah,” Jesse said, looking away from the daemon sitting a bit too close to his comfort. “But Winston asked her to scout couple places before sending a team out there.”

Hanzo stiffened and Kaito let out a low, displeased growl when they realised the danger and distance Jesse and Rosita placed themselves.

“We don’t mind” Rosita assured, looking at the dragon when speaking “It helps to keep you guys safe. Athena might be a super advanced AI, but even she can’t see things I do.”

Kaito muttered something under his breath in Japanese, but Jesse swore he recognized couple words Genji had liked to throw around him back in the old days and the two American’s couldn’t help but smile.

It was nice to know that the Shimada brothers had something else in common than their dragon daemons. Even if it was insulting their American teammates. 

After that, making the conservation with Hanzo was much easier, an effect Jesse had noticed Rosita’s presence to have almost every person they met.  
Rosita believed it happened because with her it was easier for people to forget they were an abnormality, while Jesse thought it was because she let the to see what kind of person he truly was. 

Or perhaps their mama’s unique relationship with Jay and their time in Deadlock had just messed up Jesse and Rosita’s understanding of how important part of communication daemons truly were.

But whatever the truth was, Jesse couldn’t find it less important at the moment when he laughed at Hanzo’s story while the moon kept sneaking higher on the sky. He was glad to have an ally like Hanzo on his side in this new Overwatch; just as messed up in head and travelled with a soul that many saw as unnatural. Their personalities could time to time be very far from each other, leading to conflicts, but at the end of the day, Jesse couldn’t hope a better friend than the archer at his side.

Because that what Hanzo was to him. A friend.

After all, believing in that was much easier than acknowledging the two daemons behind their backs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was fun story to write. Thank you all those who read this. I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> About Kaito: I like the headcanon that Shimadas' have dragons as daemons. They are the only known people with daemons who have adopted a form of animal that isn't real. This is the most likely caused by genetic mutation or something. 
> 
> Also. Yes, Kaito is male just like Hanzo and no, Hanzo isn't trans. 
> 
> Funny (but useles) fact: I have read His Dark Materials books when I was younger, but it wasn't until writing this story, I found out that the witches live (mostly) in Finland. I didn't realise this earlier because I read the Finnish translation of the books, so the Finnish names didn't pop up that badly. 
> 
> But to those who are interested. If I lived in HDM world, I would be part of either Keitele or Mickojärvi (I think this is trying to be Mikkojärvi. We don't us c in Finnish) clan. The map I found claims there isn't any witch clans on area where I live, but those two are the closest ones.


End file.
